I haven't written a review here in a long time. However, after having just watched Outfoxed, I am compelled to put down my impressions while they're still fresh.
For a long time, I was indifferent to Fox the network and Fox the "news" channel. But a few years ago, as Ruppert Murdoch's modus operandi began to make itself apparent to me, I became so disgusted that I stopped being a fan of the LA Dodgers, which Murdoch owned for a period of time, and I even stopped watching the Simpsons, owned and broadcast by Fox.
At the beginning of Outfoxed, I recoiled at being subjected to relentless footage of this propaganda machine in motion. Mercifully soon thereafter, the filmmakers began to unravel, point by point, the tactics used by Fox. I found myself shifting from emotional revulsion to intellectual fascination, as if the filmmakers were presenting a toy machine, taking it apart, and pointing out how the gears, levers and pulleys work. Or, more appropriately, the filmmakers were taking a monster to the scalpel and dissecting it for all to see.
Now the heroic aspect of Outfoxed is daring, like David, to take on Goliath, but the objective value of Outfoxed is the specific lesson it provides in critical thinking: detecting the content and delivery of a propaganda machine.
Pundits will say that this sort of analysis can be applied to Outfoxed itself. However, Outfoxed presents well documented PATTERNS over extended periods of time. Furthermore, the video archive and the statistics presented, even without a narrator's commentary, speak for themselves, and it is a grotesque portrait.
Highly recommended, see Outfoxed for yourself and show it, gently, to friends and loved ones who believe that Fox News, and mainstream media in general, is a fair and balanced enterprise.
One final piece of advice: rewind and freeze-frame often, taking time to read the distracting ticker at the bottom of most Fox News broadcasts, especially in the months leading up to and during the Iraq deployment. The ticker distracts from the commentators, and the commentators distract from the ticker, so you are taking in BOTH, SUBLIMINALLY. Explosive stuff, this is.
For its' relevance, guts, content and eloquence, Outfoxed gets a 10 out of 10.
For a long time, I was indifferent to Fox the network and Fox the "news" channel. But a few years ago, as Ruppert Murdoch's modus operandi began to make itself apparent to me, I became so disgusted that I stopped being a fan of the LA Dodgers, which Murdoch owned for a period of time, and I even stopped watching the Simpsons, owned and broadcast by Fox.
At the beginning of Outfoxed, I recoiled at being subjected to relentless footage of this propaganda machine in motion. Mercifully soon thereafter, the filmmakers began to unravel, point by point, the tactics used by Fox. I found myself shifting from emotional revulsion to intellectual fascination, as if the filmmakers were presenting a toy machine, taking it apart, and pointing out how the gears, levers and pulleys work. Or, more appropriately, the filmmakers were taking a monster to the scalpel and dissecting it for all to see.
Now the heroic aspect of Outfoxed is daring, like David, to take on Goliath, but the objective value of Outfoxed is the specific lesson it provides in critical thinking: detecting the content and delivery of a propaganda machine.
Pundits will say that this sort of analysis can be applied to Outfoxed itself. However, Outfoxed presents well documented PATTERNS over extended periods of time. Furthermore, the video archive and the statistics presented, even without a narrator's commentary, speak for themselves, and it is a grotesque portrait.
Highly recommended, see Outfoxed for yourself and show it, gently, to friends and loved ones who believe that Fox News, and mainstream media in general, is a fair and balanced enterprise.
One final piece of advice: rewind and freeze-frame often, taking time to read the distracting ticker at the bottom of most Fox News broadcasts, especially in the months leading up to and during the Iraq deployment. The ticker distracts from the commentators, and the commentators distract from the ticker, so you are taking in BOTH, SUBLIMINALLY. Explosive stuff, this is.
For its' relevance, guts, content and eloquence, Outfoxed gets a 10 out of 10.